He blew it in Ukraine. He blew it with captive civilians in Afghanistan. He blew it with former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan being held for 16 years in Russia.
And here’s how Joe Biden is blowing it now in negotiating the release of the first American journalist to be abducted in Russia since the end of the Cold War.
Here’s the entirety of his plea for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, held by Russian authorities on dubious spying charges: In response to reporters who asked Biden what Vladimir Putin should do with Gershkovich, he said, “Let him go.”
Joe Biden is one hell of a negotiator.
Unbelievable. Typical. He’s a farce.
Let’s hope for more success from the 30 news organizations and advocates for press freedom that have written to Russia’s U.S. ambassador to outline concerns that Putin is informally criminalizing internal reporting, that he’s basically hostage taking.
Even Brittney Griner, the basketball star Russia detained for 10 months last year, made her own plea for Gershkovich. She said America must do “everything in our power” to bring him home. “Every American who is taken is ours to fight for, and every American returned is a win for us all,” she and her partner wrote, before saying the Biden administration should use “every tool possible to bring Evan and all wrongfully detained Americans home.”
Biden chose Griner over Whelan last year. He traded her for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was in prison for life as the so-called “Merchant of Death.” Paul Whelan was left behind. Griner had served 10 months in 2022 after being arrested for having vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in Russia.
The son of Soviet immigrants, Gershkovich moved to Russia in 2017 for his first reporting gig, at the Moscow Times. He was hired by the Journal in January 2022 as a Moscow-based correspondent. But last Thursday, Russia’s Federal Security Service arrested Gershkovich and accused him of trying to secure classified information.
Reported his employer, the Wall Stree Journal: “At 10:35 a.m. Thursday morning Moscow time, an item from Russia’s state news agency said Mr. Gershkovich had been detained and accused of espionage by the Federal Security Bureau, the successor to the KGB. Images on Russian state television showed Gershkovich escorted by plainclothes FSB officers, wearing faded bluejeans and sneakers, a black-gloved hand around his stooped neck.
“Mr. Gershkovich, 31 years old, is the American son of Soviet-born Jewish exiles who had settled in New Jersey. He fell in love with Russia – its language, the people he chatted with for hours in regional capitals, the punk bands he hung out with at Moscow dive bars. Now, espionage charges leave him facing a possible prison sentence of up to 20 years.”
His employer, colleagues and the Biden administration all deny Russia’s claim that he was spying on behalf of the U.S., and have called for his immediate release. Diplomats and legal experts see little hope Mr. Gershkovich, a reporter accredited by the Russian foreign ministry, will immediately be freed, given that espionage trials in Russia are conducted in secret and almost always end in a conviction.”
His paper continued: “When forest fires swept through the remote Siberian region of Yakutia in 2021, he slept in a tent in the woods for four days, long after other reporters jetted back to the capital. He won the trust of freshman medical students by sitting with them in Covid-19 wards as they revealed that they’d been enlisted, after only a few weeks of training, to treat a flood of patients.
“‘I just want to get the story right,’ he would tell friends.”
It’s not up to Joe Biden alone to win freedom for Gerchkovich. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Sunday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and called for the “immediate release” of detained Americans Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, according to the U.S. State Department.
“Secretary Blinken conveyed the United States’ grave concern over Russia’s unacceptable detention of a U.S. citizen journalist,” a readout from the department said.
Like his boss, Blinken is no stud of a negotiator. Putin is, once again, having his was with America.
Pity poor Mr. Whelan. Russia needed another bargaining chip since a Russian national was just charged on fraud charges here in the U.S.
Where’s Donald Trump when we need him?
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